I thought EZguitar is around this time but still haven't heard any news. Since I used Ezbass, I smelled Ezguitar is gonna come out soon.
When are you guess it will be around?

 

Is there money involved in this guessing, or is it just...uh...
As said here below, maybe where you might have asked, it mentions they grabbed the name many years ago to protect it.
Anything else is just bubbles dissolving in your mind.
https://www.toontrack.com/forums/topic/new-ezguitar/

And did you enjoy that thought?

 

There hasn't been news about EzGuitar ever

 

Guitar is way harder to model/sample (and then play or program it via midi) than bass and drums, that's why no one has done it decently so far.

To be honest, I don't even know if it's possible with our current technology.

 

@RMorgan String Studio from a decade ago, can't remember who made it, was very realistic for acoustic string modeling.
If you put fx and cab on it, believable as an electric guitar solo.
But the instrument is only played as per a keyboard.
Would have to build that into a 6 string guitar framework similar to the sample based instruments.

Uh, I chose "modeling" because it's on topic.
Also "sampling" has been conquered pretty much for electric guitar anyway, don't you think?

So easy now, yeah!

Huh?

 

Last edited: Sep 16, 2021

there was one guitar modeling vst released many years ago that i thought (at the time) sounded excellent. it was called ironaxe, and it was a 32 bit plugin that the developer promised would be upgraded to a new and improved version that would be 64-bit in the future.

you can still buy the 32-bit version, but the developer never followed through with an updated version.

 

Maybe it's because I'm a guitarist myself (and a big fan of guitar centered music in general), but I'm yet to hear a guitar plugin which could actually replace a real guitarist, as it's already possible with bass and specially drums.

If you need an acoustic guitar rhythm part which is buried in the back of a mix and covered with reverb, it can be done...Or maybe you want to make a heavy metal rhythm part buried in tons of distortion, sure...

However, if you get into the serious guitar territory, like blues, jazz or classic rock, it can't be done convincingly as far as I'm aware.

The same goes for other hard to emulate instruments, like the saxophone.

That's probably because both these instruments are very dynamic and allow for an impossibly huge combination of techniques and articulations.

Eventually technology will get there, I'm sure, though. Just not yet.

 

Last edited: Sep 16, 2021

Well, if you look into Session Guitarist of Native Instrument, it is not true. Toontrack can make it easier and better. NI Session Guitarist series eats too much room of hard drive. If they change it like EZ series, you don't need 5GB for each library.
MusicLab's Real Guitar series also provide patterns. The only complaint is that the quality isn't good when you use them with amp sims.

 

I might have written that exact same sentence myself - and it always gets me into trouble with drummers who tell me that I'm clueless about what drum packages are missing out on compared to 'live drumming'. I have to agree with them - but then I still use drum packages anyway.

Then (as a hypocrite), with guitar packages, I take the same attitude as drummers and claim that no guitar package ever quite gets it right. While that's true, I think the far bigger problem is that people explore guitar packages and somehow expect to find 'guitar technique' in there somewhere. And, of course- it ain't there!

Here's a couple of examples of people demonstrating that even with a great guitar package the only way it's going to come to life is if YOU put some life into it yourself.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=JhOU-QMG7iU

Some nice acoustic in second half of this one.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ao-yAsNpbJQ

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2021

I suggest it is because you are a guitarist, and not a drummer or bass player, that you say that.
And you are probably trying to use it and approach it as you would a guitar!
I've been using MIDI since just after it appeared, and I was a session keys player for live and studio all these years. That alone makes these instruments easy for me. I know MIDI inside out. You need to, too, imo.
Plus I have also sometimes dep'd on bass, drums, and guitar.
But it's the MIDI and samplers background that helps.
And then secondly knowing the guitar.
I think you are coming from that second place only?
It's all done in the post take MIDI editing, my friend.
Unlearn what you think and test out Prominy, Ample Sound, and Orange Tree Samples.
Over the weekend I will find you examples of why your next quote is objectively incorrect.
Or maybe I will record you some jazz fusion...

No sampler instrument is perfect, compared to the real thing!
Why do you think I have all the best Kontakt pianos, plus another 50+?
Because no one will do on its own for every task.
And then even physical instruments are never perfect, too! lol
But you are both wrong about where we are with guitars!
You gonna be so shocked if I can find the time to prove it.
But the truth is out there...

This is like you being stuck in The Matrix and you don't know, but I can't help to show you the way right now...

Okay, Mr.Obvious! Yes, it's called soul. And mine has the funk!
Maybe you are saveable after all! haha

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2021

I feel like I'm the only one who doesn't want this to happen. I want guitars to be modeling themselves cause they sexy already.

Anytime I hear music that someone made with a guitar program I can always tell how badly it was implemented into their song and it's a dead giveaway instantly. It honestly just makes me cringe when I hear it and I don't even mean to.

Anytime I hear god awful fake guitar in a song, I instantly get taken back to that "I'm in love with a stripper song" which is how all fake guitar music sounds like to me. Sounds like the midi version of T-Pain studying Autotune or hardly studying at all.

 

EZGuitar? I have heard no mention - Amplesound is half-decent but none of them are perfect.

Because of the nature of a guitar's tuning in perfect fourths and the major 3rd between the 2nd and 3rd strings, not to mention the myriad of ways to strum, pick, strike, sweep and pick types ( soft, medium, hard) and makeup (tortoise shell, plastic, metal etc etc).. different woods, pickups, then you get into attack, performance dynamics techniques and much more... it's not like sampling a piano. The same goes with a bass. Most of the bass instruments are sampled well but as a bass player, none of the things in demos or tunes I have heard I can say a real bassist would play that way. Amplesound and Trillian come close but it still sounds synthetic sometimes.

Someone said it's all in the way it is played. That is correct if an instrument is sampled properly. A substantial number of keyboardists play virtual instruments like a painist/keyboardist. Give any chord symbol - The tuning on a guitar means the chord voicings as a start point are completely different to how a pianist would play them.

If reality is the goal on a bass instrument or guitar instrument, people need to learn how players of those instruments voice chords, play them and approach any given piece of music. Learning the inherent nature of any instrument is always a good choice.

The only sampled instruments I have heard that could well be real players were done by composers who took the time to learn the intricacies of the sampled instrument they were emulating.

 

The mass of the coming generation of musicians no longer learns an instrument, they load a guitar simulation and a few midi files. In addition, a virtual drum track where the notes are drawn by hand and the song is ready.

 

I get that and I have moved with the times to accept that for many that is the case (not all thankfully).
However, it still pays to understand that if they seek a form of believability, they need to understand the workings of the instrument in how it is played. If they do not seek reality, then I suppose it does not matter how it is played.

EDIT - It's like all the libraries people download from the sister site, whether playable or samples only. The samples sound real because they are samples of real players but the playable libraries - Most of the stuff I have heard here of people putting up their compositions (not all) of people using playable libraries, the tunes do not sound like the real thing because they did not learn the intricacies of the instruments. That has nothing to do with playing skills, only awareness and understanding.

 

You have to use them within their boundaries, without non-keys player expectations!

Correct! lol And then...the editing and adding keyswitches.
Possibly tracking up another instance of the instrument to cater for something else...just as we layer with orc.

<sigh> Yes, but you have totally missed the point!
We don't play it like a piano! IAnd I'm a pianist initially, but one needs to be able to play the guitar to understand these instruments, imo.
Just because you have black and white keys means nothing! They are just triggers.
Distinguish between a keyboard based MIDI controller and a piano! Please! lol

OF COURSE!
Then if used properly it IS indistinguishable in a mix!

Just because you all haven't had success with Ample Sound, Prominy, or Orange Tree Samples in your mix doesn't mean anything!

I will show you proof, y'all show me your horrendous attempts, by the sounds of it!
Blame the tool, please! lol

And it will sound like vomit tastes.
Stop hanging around with them, then!
Or is it just a "the masses" illusion you are in?

And obviously it will sound like poop; if poop had a sound.
"Don't believe the hype"
Nobody has success if they are doing what Beat16 reckons. C'mon!

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2021

Learning the intricacies which I stated covered that.

The players I work with have named only one track they could not tell and they pick it every time and I'm not bad at it either - it was a John Williams score. That's because he hired the other John Williams (guitar) and looped him.

Smoove - be more realistic - YOU might not play it like a piano but a LOT do.
Here is one of the simplest - A n early guitarist presented with an Em chord will voice it E,B,E,G,B,E
There is no way naturally any keyboardist or pianist will voice it that way - and the great keyboardists I work with are also great pianists and there are a lot of them around mate. They learned both the piano and the technology. Not everyone has the identical skills. It would be nice if they did, but you'd be surprised how even some great keys players missed the point in some things.

 

I don't suffer from illusions, I try to depict reality in our society.

I play guitar myself - I started myself when I was 18 years old. There are worlds between playing the guitar yourself or using a program on a PC. And the difference will be the same in 1000 years. We no longer need machines that do our work for us, but people who learn and play a musical instrument. Not more computers, but fewer computers. The temptation is great to leave all that to the machines. And that's why we will continue to see many people who are dependent on the machines. Of course, the companies develop digital guitars as long as you can earn money with them.

 

That's the most important point, well made
- and yet even what you said there is understated.

A guitar package may have a huge suite of guitar articulations built in but how do you practically access those articulations?
Either by writing them into your DAW manually or with assisted automation, or by using some other physical controller.
The do it in your DAW route is slow motion and tedious, and ANY other physical controller will fail to match the phenomenal access to sound manipulation that happens real-time and continuously - per finger on both hands when a physical guitar is being played. In comparison to that, other physical controllers provide just clunky access. Apologies to talented keyboard players but that's just a fact of instrument design.
Of course it's possible to use non-guitar controller approaches to make very impressive guitar sound performances, (those in the videos I posted for example). But no amount of keyboard controller skill can offer you the same real-time comprehensive control over all the nuances you can squeeze out of a guitar where both hands are directly engaged with the strings.

Imagine this scenario....
An experienced guitarist, equally skilled with fretboard skills and keyboard controller skills and also skilled with DAW-oriented programming. That person will say 'instantly' that 'playing it on a guitar fretboard' provides vastly more control than the alternatives, and that this increased physical control is the basis of establishing their hopefully unique signature sound and style.

p.s., I think guitar packages are wonderful! and undoubtedly 'good enough' for lots of occasions. Whatever EZGuitar may or may not turn out to be I will grab it eagerly - but let's stay real about comparing these tools with actually physically playing guitars.

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2021

Which is cheating and not applicable to the topic because it's just a real recording!
NOT a sample based, playable instrument!
Next!

I am not tempted.
Are you tempted?
Are you just reminding us to think of it as a temptation?
Sample based instruments are for mock-up mostly, but they can be transparent if used properly with the understanding required.
The mock-up is then overdubbed with real guitar.
I would always prefer an actual guitar.
Next!

Yes, hello? What can I do for you?
Maybe these instruments are only usable by someone who started playing at 5, recording at 7, studying at 11, recording with MIDI from 13, being signed at 18, who has over 30 years gigging and recording experience.
It sure feels like it!
These instruments are easy! lol
Ad, you show enough musicality in your talk.
You must be able to make these instruments sound good and believable as I and others can?
Surely?
And the rest of you.

Correct. Obviously.
Point being ???

If you read you'll see it was never talked about and probably will never exist.
The name was just trademarked or whatever they do to protect a name.
And as noted, a modelled bass is one thing. And we already know how that feels to play, and sounds...
Apart from the product I mentioned, which was a modeled acoustic nylon and metal guitar, which played as per a synth and not like Ample Sound instruments, there has been nothing in the way of a modelled electric guitar with functionality as per a real guitar.
Like Ample Sound, Prominy, and Orange Tree Samples have successfully done, simply with sampling and great coding in Kontakt. No modeling. Too tricky.

Ah. Nope. Look into the powerful post take MIDI editing I mentioned.
All the magic is there, held back only by your understanding of MIDI and how these 3 different companies do it with guitars.

 

Last edited: Sep 17, 2021

I would say it is easier to get more people to play music today than it used to be. I think the computer has definitely changed my life and my brain structure a bit. They say yes you shouldn't underestimate the spirit of the age,

In the past you had to pay for expensive hard disk recording and pay for the practice room, many musicians did some kind of job from the biscuit factory to driving a taxi to pay for their passion for music. The computer is a quantum leap in human history and I hope that the power never fails. I care about the measure of things and freedom.
Someone who doesn't play an instrument can still control an entire orchestra on the PC. Well that's what. I just wonder what the quality of the songs will be like.

You always have to work your way into the matter first, for example we test a lot of software instruments, some don't like the sound, others are too difficult and others become true masters. When you asked whether we should leave everything to the machines, I say no, I don't have a smart home and I don't want one either. I'm analog, it's the other way around with synthesizers, I've already sold some because the possibilities for sounds on software synthesizers are sometimes greater.

Without the digital (the forum here as an example) I would have to go to England from Zeebrücke to Dover and then take the bus to visit you so that we can talk a little and exchange ideas. But robots shouldn't make music either, this AI chatter is a huge hype and at the end of the story the companies only want to sell products to make money. Often things that you don't need and things that break quickly. I prefer people to make music, regardless of the quality, instead of hanging out on the street and attacking a grandma to get money to kill the boredom. I hope the language translator does its job well.